Link-up to keep vulnerable of police cells

South Yorkshire Police and the NHS aim to ensure they are assessed by trained nurses and taken to places of safety instead.

The “street triage” scheme will see mental health nurses join police officers on 999 calls in order to help people who are believed to need urgent mental health support.

A six-month pilot scheme was launched on Monday in Sheffield, Rotherham and Doncaster and it is set to be extended to Barnsley in April.

If successful, this new partnership will be made permanent.

Det Supt Andrew Parker said: “Currently, over 40 per cent of all people who are detained under the Mental Health Act are taken to a police station.  

“This situation is wrong, and is failing these people.

“The aim of this scheme is to ensure people who use the new service are assessed by a trained mental health nurse and taken to a safe place, to receive the most appropriate care.

“Police officers simply don't have the same expertise as specialist nurses when it comes to dealing with people with emergency mental health issues.

“This new triage process is there to try and intervene, to make an assessment of people's needs earlier and to deal with those needs in a compassionate, humane and understanding way.

“The result will be that police stations are used only as a last resort."

South Yorkshire Police will be running the scheme across the whole force area, seven days a week.

The scheme will see police officers joined by mental health nurses or mental health social workers during afternoon and nighttime shifts.

It is hoped that money will be saved overall as the costs of detaining vulnerable people in police stations will be cut.

Dr Nick Tupper, chairman of the NHS Doncaster Clinical Commissioning Group, said: “The aim is to ensure medical attention is provided as quickly as possible.

“Making sure people with mental health problems get the right assessment, care and treatment urgently is really important, especially in crisis situations.

“The scheme will run for six months and we will then evaluate how effective it has been.

“We hope it will reduce the impact of mental health emergencies on police, health and social care resources.”